Hate Is a Choice

Israelis are trying to process their grief -- the Palestinians are exploiting theirs.

Camp Koby and Yosef, which my husband and I created in the wake of our son's murder, ran camps for hundreds of Israeli children who lost parents or siblings in terror attacks, or who themselves had been injured.

With the summer over, we have worked with almost 600 children, helping them to go on in joy.

Our camps have art, music, and drama therapy, specially trained counselors and staff to enhance healing moments with the children, teaching them that pain can be touched, endured and shared. Our goal is to channel and transform pain so children can continue to grow into productive, energetic citizens.

In most Palestinian summer camps the philosophy starkly contrasts the intent of our camps. As reported in The Jerusalem Post, at summer camp Palestinian children learn to fight like soldiers; the camps have names honoring terrorists who have blown up buses; the campers march around like guerrilla fighters and swear allegiance to killing Israelis.

Meanwhile, in an exceptional camp explicitly founded as one that does not teach Palestinian children violence, the director states that he is, instead, teaching the children "solidarity." In other words, there is a still a political agenda, even if explicit violence isn't on the menu.

As an Israeli mother who lost a child to terror I know how immense grief is and how much work it is to deal with loss and keep it in a place that is surrounded by love and kindness. The pain is simply unbearable. But in my work with over 150 Israeli mothers this year, all of whom have lost children or husbands to terror, I have heard only a handful talk about anger.

The media assume that Israelis who have been struck by terror walk around filled with hate and anger and calls for vengeance. But it's not true. We walk around filled with sadness and despair. But that despair does not motivate us to hate or kill. We Jews translate our pain into sadness and a desperate need for coping, personal growth, and memorializing our children.

That is the message we transmit to our children.

Conversely, too many Palestinians teach their children to translate their pain into anger and vengeance. And though many argue that the Palestinians are powerless and in despair and thus forced to resort to vengeance and violence, the short-lived hudna showed us that Palestinian powerlessness is a myth.

What is supposed to be a time for innocent adventure is instead manipulated into a period of political and moral indoctrination of the worst kind.

The Palestinians can control their so-called desperation. Their calls for vengeance, their hatred is a choice. And their leaders keep choosing hate. You can see that hate expressed blatantly in Palestinian summer camps.

What is supposed to be a time for innocent adventure is instead manipulated into a period of political and moral indoctrination of the worst kind. And it is the children who are being manipulated; some would say, abused.

Camp songs might be dismissed as irrelevant, yet if the Palestinian children are singing songs of hate, those are the songs that will fill these children's hearts for decades.

There is a chasm between the Israeli and Palestinian cultures, and though some want to ascribe it to politics, the tragic truth is that no political solution can dampen the flames of hatred that have been kindled in Palestinian society. The hate is too deep, too insistent, and too accepted.

Few journalists want to touch the story of Palestinian hate. Major media like The New York Times and The Washington Post avoid our camp -- perhaps because it reveals the deep-seated difference in the two cultures.

Israelis are trying to process their grief -- the Palestinians are exploiting theirs.

Do not underestimate the power of pain. Unprocessed grief can last for decades. The cynical exploitation of pain -- in summer camps, schools, and in the Palestinian and international media -- is a prime saboteur of any attempts at peace -- and may be so for generations to come.

Israelis are working to cope with their pain. Palestinians nurture theirs, inflame it, and worship it.

This article originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post.

The writer is co-director of the Koby Mandell Foundation's Healing Retreat, a therapeutic program for bereaved mothers and widows of families struck by terror.

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About the Author

Sherri Mandell is the author of "Writers of the Holocaust," and author of the forthcoming book (Sept. ༿) "The Blessing of a Broken Heart" (Toby Press). She and her husband are founders of The Koby Mandell Foundation (www.kobymandell.org), dedicated to creating programs that help children and families struck by tragedy.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 5

(5)
simona,
September 10, 2003 12:00 AM

teaching hate is abuse

more people need to share this information. teaching children to hate is akin to mental and emotional abuse. many years ago i saw a photograph of a family in the united states that had posted a nazi flag and posters from white supremacy groups in their baby's nursery. these people limited their child's chance to grow up with love and decency in his heart.
in this same way the palestinians are murdering their children from the inside with hate. a child who knows only hate and anger will grow up to be an adult whose heart is filled with so much hate that there is little room for love.
golda meir once said that there will only be peace when the palestinians learn to love their children as much as their hate the jews. that day is still long in coming, may they someday bless their children with peace and love instead of hate and destruction.

(4)
Rifka,
September 7, 2003 12:00 AM

Action, not words, must be the answer.

I can't understand why so many people are wringing their hands at the thought of Arab cynicism. We all know that they use their children as weapons to kill and hurt Jews. When will action be taken to end this ultimate form of child abuse?

(3)
Beverly Kurtin,
September 7, 2003 12:00 AM

Constant Choices

Humans are constantly faced with choices; the courageous and compassionate choice of the Mandells to channel what had to be unfathomable grief to comfort others is deserving of praise. They have taken the mitzvah to love their neighbors as themselves above and beyond anything that could possibly be expected of anyone.

It is regrettable that the Arabs have chosen to implant their next generation with the hatred they feel towards us and themselves. The mind that chooses to hate others turns inwards and poisons its own soul and body. I fear for the future of those who choose to hate us; HaShem's promises to bless them that bless us and curse those who curse us has not expired.

(2)
Naghi Astanei,
September 7, 2003 12:00 AM

I accept no compromise in war on Terrorism

Dear Sherri Mandell:
Please, accept my condolence. The Terrorism, not just AlQaehah, should be erased from face of Earth, no if but or then. What you said about Palestinian Camp did distrube me,yet I take it as a bitter turth. However, when we say Israel, about 1/4 of this great nation are Arabs, not to mention we have Israeli Jewish-Arabs, too. About 1 per cent of Israel Terro victems are Israeli Arabs. Would you plaes, let me know which kind of camps they run? I am sure Mr. Arafar, Yaseen,...care about them as much they care about other human beings, which is nothing. Do you try to reach them or do they try to reach you? I believe if Moslem and Jews they work side by side they can overcome these evil-doer. the Terrorism should be erased from book of this universe, no if, but, or then.
I do feel about victems of terror in israel same as my own member of families. Thank you and G-d Bless you
Naghi

(1)
Moshe Goldstein,
September 7, 2003 12:00 AM

Hate

I am glad aish.com mentioned how most Israelis don't want revenge or to kill Palestinians. I often hear people say about how the Palestians and Israelis hate each other and which annoys me since its not true. The Palestinians hate Jews but most Jews don't hate Palestinians.

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I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!